By Lola

Hello folks! Yes, I’ve been on vacation and blessedly disconnected—though not necessarily by choice. Funny how one has become so completely dependent on technology. Anyway, I’ve been at my mom’s and she has a wireless connection but couldn’t find the password so I couldn’t connect my laptop and I couldn’t upload my photos to her PC (PCs = boo; Macs = yay) and blah blah blah…

ANYWAY, here I am, with a bit of a belated blog about my most wonderful Mexican breakfast in Mexico City, the one I boasted about last week.

This is La Casa de Toño, famous for its pozole and it’s mouthwatering fried quesadillas:

This is a guy who is building an empire on tacos and pozole: he now owns three different locales in Mexico City; the one I went to (housed in four or five different buildings) was in Claverías, a firmly middle class neighborhood, where my cousin resides with her husband and her very active three-year-old, Rodrigo.

They actually live right around the corner from Toño’s, so we walked over around 10 AM. The place was already full—and steadily got seriously packed. This guy has hit upon one of the best combinations known to business-dom: great food, fast service, and a clean, well-lit family atmosphere (as in, no smoking). The waiters race around like worker bees, ensuring no dirty plate loiters too long on a table and no stomach has to suffer a single hunger pang. Not even half a hunger pang. Who knows how they do it, but the guy consistently turned out FRESH, delicious food within minutes of placing the order. I asked for a quesadilla de queso con pollo—kind of an insult when you consider Toño has a list of some 10 different quesadillas on his menu, but hey, so I’m boring, so what. Here’s the plate from heaven that arrived at my table (liberally sprinkled by me with salsa verde):

You think my taste buds would be asleep at this hour, but just seeing this again is making them work overtime.

Here’s the flautas plate my cousin’s husband ordered, and a selection of the fresh salsas they place on your table in sweet anticipation of what’s to come:

IMHO, the place is a gem. Plus the guy is not only savvy on the ground, he’s also figured out the power of the Internet—you must visit his website, where you’ll find menus, pictures and even, get this, GAMES. Yep, the guy’s got it together.

Let’s hear it for Toño!!!